6.2 million of the 9.8 smartphone sales activated by Verizon this quarter were iPhones

Verizon released their Q4 2012 earnings today, and as we already knew, the carrier announced that it activated 9.8 million smartphones in the quarter gone by. But what we didn't know, until now, was what percentage of that figure were iPhone activations.

All told, Verizon activated 6.2 million iPhones, with nearly half of them being the iPhone 5. Put differently, the iPhone accounted for 63.2% of all of Verizon's smartphone sales this past quarter. That figure represents the highest proportion of iPhones sold in any previous quarter.

So is this good news or bad news ahead of Apple's earnings announcement tomorrow?

Well, let's take a closer look at the numbers.

Last quarter, Verizon activated 3.1 million iPhones, which accounted for approximately 46% of their total smartphone activations.

More telling, however, is to compare Verizon's recently released figures with their earnings report from the same quarter a year ago.

During the holiday quarter of 2011, Verizon activated 7.7 million smartphones, 4.2 million of which where iPhones. That translates to the iPhone accounting for 54% of all smartphone sales on Verizon for the quarter.

And how about overall iPhone sales year-over-year? Well, going from 4.2 million iPhones to 6.2 million iPhones quarter-over-quarter represents close to a 50% increase (47.6% to be exact).

Of course, analysts looking to downplay Apple will point out that the iPhone 5 only accounted for less than half of the 6.2 million activations. With Apple set to release their earnings after the close of the market tomorrow, we'll soon see if they have news to alleviate what are arguably unfounded investor fears regarding iPhone 5 demand.